Onward to Scotland

 Friday September 16

Morning came way too early yet again. Today we were leaving Barcelona and heading to Scotland. We planned to leave for the airport at 8:30 but still had a lot to do to get ready.

The night before we decided we should make use of the washing machine while we had access to one but since time only allowed for one use we agreed upon one run of socks and underwear.

The washing machine was a combination washer and dryer in the same unit. None of us had used, or even seen, anything like it before so it took some guessing to figure out the controls. Bryan even went online to find instructions on how to operate it.

Four hours later the washer was still running. We weren’t sure if there was too much in the washer or if we didn’t set the controls right or perhaps this was normal. Bryan stayed up long past the rest of us waiting for the wash cycle to finish to begin the dryer cycle.

Mark got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and found that the clothes were all dry yet there was another three hours of running time for the dryer so he stopped it.

In the morning as we claimed our items we found that our once white socks were now a lovey blue.

Come to find out, Jason threw some other clothes in with the socks and underwear including a brand new bright blue T-shirt he just bought. Obviously he isn't the one doing the laundry at home.

As our instructions dictated, we were to take out the trash as we left the apartment. This seemed like a simple request until I walked out the front door for the final time and the door locked behind us while I was holding a large bag of waste.

There are no end to the differences between cultures and countries, some minor and some not so small, but how different can it be to take out the trash I thought. Yet here I stood a bit bewildered and started stopping people on the street asking where to take my trash. It sounds bad enough writing about this and it was no less embarrassing.

Not understanding the language I resorted to following fingers as they pointed me in the right direction. At the end of our block sat a large dumpster. I circled it several times looking for a door. I pulled and pushed and circled it some more. I started looking for other containers. There were some across the street but they looked identical. Again I started pulling, knocking, and trying to slide anything, nothing worked. I'm sure I was quite the sight for the locals.

Finally someone had mercy on me, walked over and stepped on a bar near the bottom of the container and a lid popped up. I was certainly relieved until he indicated in broken English that I was not allowed to throw plastic in the bid, trash only. He retrieved a large gallon plastic jug I was discarding and said one word, "yellow". I then started searching for yellow containers. There were none in sight. I returned to the group still waiting with their luggage for us to depart. The maintenance man for the building saw our dilemma and took the plastic container. How could something so simple be so difficult?

Now behind schedule, we hurried to the bus stop only to realize that none of us knew where the bus stop was either. We went to where we were dropped off but there were no signs indicating where the bus to the airport boarded. We walked around the area like a plucked goose in a wind tunnel. We wandered in different directions looking for any sign of our bus. We finally found a blue bus that looked like the one we arrived on. We hurried up to it and learned that this area was for arrivals only and the departures were in a different area. Again we hurried down several blocks to find the bus. We were way behind schedule now.

We found that the people here were overly observant of city rules. As in the incident earlier with Jason cutting line and the security guard kicking him out of the queue, we found that pedestrians were very strict following traffic lights. The city seemed very health conscious as vegetarian and vegan options were available everywhere and likewise the city was making a push for more bicycles instead of motor cars. All streets had clearly marked bike lanes and even the bike lanes had stoplights with pedestrian crossing lights. Here we stood in a hurry for the airport and we still found ourselves standing at a small one lane bike path with no bikes approaching waiting for the light to turn green.

When we finally arrived at the airport we knew we had to move quickly and efficiently since any extra time we hoped to gain was gone. We were looking for the check-in counter for Vueling airlines. We had never heard of it before. We found and followed a sign to one open counter with about 200 people in line. This was bad and would take a long time to get through.

Someone overheard us complaining and informed us that this was only for customers who needed to change a flight and they had another place to drop off bags. We left and found the other counter. Fortunately this one only had about 190 people in line. Not much better odds of getting through on time though. Mark grew impatient and went to look for other options and came back with news that Vueling is bigger than we thought and actually took up half the airport. I went with him and found that they had a whole large automated section for dropping off bags. We scanned our tickets and dropped the bags and we were in line for security.

As we were winding back and forth Bryan got to looking and saw that the place where we dropped our bags was labels Domestic. Too late now, our bags were gone. We could only hope that they make it to the international section and on our plane. We breezed through security, well, all except for Mark. We knew from prior trips that for some reason he is typically detained. He was manually searched and he and his bags went back through security a second time and then off we went.

We still had a little bit of time till boarding so decided to find a lounge that we were provided access to from our credit cards. We tried following the directions, got lost, wandered around the airport awhile and eventually discovered that we still had to find and go through passport control. We eventually got through that and then found our lounge and could finally breath a bit. The lounge offered quite a good selection of various foods, drinks and snacks. We ate up and headed to our gate.

To make the rest of this already dismal trip story shorter, the plane ended up being delayed for 2 1/2 hours due to an airline controllers strike in France. Not quite sure how that was supposed to effect us but it did.

We eventually did arrive in Scotland, howbeit quite later than expected, but we arrived, as did our luggage. Oh but the trip was far from over yet. We knew there was an apartment waiting for us in Edinburgh but until now none of us questioned how we were going to get from the airport to the city center. We tried contacting the Air BnB host with no success and could find no signs of transportation and really wasn't sure what to look for. We tried to get online help but the internet on our phones was not working either. It was a bit of a mess.

We did find an ATM and even had a little trouble with that before we finally decided just to exit the airport. As we did there was a big sign, Tram to City Center. Finally something made sense. We followed the signs and ended up in a small tram car which served as a ticketing office. We found we could buy tickets online but again no internet on the phones. David, a friendly tram conductor, wandered in, took pity on us and let me connect to the internet through his cell phone and buy tickets. Finally we were on our way to Edinburgh.

The tram was delightful, clean and comfortable. Our stop was at the very end of the line so we sat through many other stops watching people get on and off. When our stop arrived, and the tram stopped, we jumped up, retrieved our bags from the racks and headed to the doors...which would not open.

Reminiscent of my waste disposal dilemma from earlier in the day we looked for things to push, to pull, to step on, anything...nothing. The tram took off again and we were still on board.

I went up to a lady who was sitting nearby and asked her how to open the tram door. She looked at me like I was crazy, or confused, and I was. She said what do you mean? I tried to explain. She said when then tram stops at a station the doors open themselves. But they didn't we argued, we were trying to get off but the doors never opened. She replied calmly, the tram stopped at a red light, not the station.

We all laughed although it was embarrassing. In just a moment the tram arrived at the station and right on queue the doors opened and off we went, still a bit muffled but in good humor.

Our first impressions of the city were more than could be expected. We walked slowly through the streets to our apartment and were amazed at the sights. We went up and down and around corners and turns and every building, every sight was as if we arrived on a movie set. Locals were conversing in their thick accents, the skies were the customary cold, cloudy and gray for these parts, the buildings were old and discolored and surrounded by ornate features that resembled such as you would find on castles or other such prominent buildings. Steeples and spires and turrets and flags dotted the tops of the cityscape.

People were everywhere but this was much different than the crowds we saw in Barcelona. Half the population seemed to be tourists and the other half was out to show them a good time. There were street performers and jugglers and bagpipe players working for tips and restaurants and various shops lined the sidewalks.

We were eager to do some sightseeing but first needed to find our apartment. We did so with little trouble and made ourselves acquainted with our new home for the next several days.

We went out for a quick dinner of fish and chips and bangers and mash. After dinner we thought we would look around a bit but most all the shops had closed by then. We just went back to the apartment to decompress from the long confusing travel day and to get some much needed rest.